Chapter Eleven
Jolted from slumber, Juliet sat upright in her bed, at first believing her pleasant dreams had inexplicably turned to nightmares, but then a second shriek convinced her that a very real person cried out in terror, or horror, not far away.
She leaped from bed, clutched her dressing gown, and hurriedly donned it as she dashed from her bedroom to the stairs.
Within the other bedrooms, she could hear faint sounds of confusion and dismay—Mrs. Hurst saying, “Who can it be?,” Mrs. Lofton moaning in dread, the Allerdyce girls crying out in fear.
Juliet’s bare feet thumped upon the stairs as she hurried down.
By this time the cries from the ground floor had turned to those of sorrow, and she recognized the voice as that of Jane Bingley.
Although it seemed years to Juliet, she reached Jane within seconds and found her on her knees by the door that led to the servants’ stairs. There, crumpled on the floor, half in and half out of the doorway, lay Becky, quite dead.
“Oh, she has fallen and broken her head,” Jane said through tears. She held the dead girl’s hand tenderly. “How terrible, how very terrible! I do not believe she was yet eighteen years of age. How shall I tell her poor mother?”
Juliet crouched low, the better to both comfort Jane and look more closely at Becky.
It did appear that she had tumbled down the stairs, for her neck and head lay at an unnatural angle, and the dishevelment of her dress also suggested a fall.
Yet Juliet noted that Becky had been wearing her nightdress with only a shawl over it.
Why would a servant descend the stairs without first donning her uniform?
It was then that Mr. Bingley appeared, responding to his wife’s cries. He looked nearly as stricken as she. “Becky! Good heavens. Is she—?” Jane nodded as she continued to sob.
Uneasy, Juliet rose to her feet, murmuring, “Please do not disturb her person just yet.” The Bingleys must have been too overcome to question her reason, but they obeyed, which allowed Juliet to step over Becky’s body and enter the servants’ stairs.
This was a narrower passageway than the one afforded to the masters of the house and their guests, and even allowing for the weakness of the dawn light, the single small window half a landing above could not ever have provided much illumination. So where was Becky’s candle?
The Bingleys pay generous wages and are very kindhearted, so probably they do not scrimp on candles even for their maids, Juliet mused. If so, might Becky have had one with her?
Perhaps, but perhaps not. Juliet imagined most servants, accustomed to making their way down dark stairs, were capable of ascending or descending by touch alone. So Becky might not have bothered to bring one.
Unless…
Juliet took the first few steps, looking for signs of spattered wax or tallow, but what she found instead turned her suspicion into wretched certainty.
There, tied at ankle height across the stairs, she saw a sort of ribbon or sash, artfully knotted in place.
The sash was a dark green, very like the color of paint on the stairs themselves.
This item could only have been placed there to trip someone—and it had, fatally so.
“Mr. Bingley,” Juliet said, “you must send word both to Mr. Darcy at Longbourn and to Mr. Lucas, for I fear Becky has been the second victim of murder at Netherfield.”
For his part, Jonathan had scarcely slept at all, so elated had he been by the success of his suit.
He remained aware that great difficulty lay ahead of them, and yet that awareness had been for the time being exiled to the very furthest reaches of his mind, like a distant range of mountains that is both a formidable boundary and yet no more than a shadow upon the horizon.
When the horse came galloping up the Longbourn path, Jonathan sat upright to see; upon recognizing the servant atop it as one of the Netherfield staff, he smiled.
His first thought—happy lover he!—was that Miss Tilney had concocted some excuse for conversation, probably relating to their investigation, that he might return to her all the earlier.
Thus all the greater was his guilt upon receiving word of what had happened.
“You see, Mr. Bennet?” Grandmama cried, in her wrapper, the hastily donned mobcap crooked upon her head. “I told you we should all come to ill ends with a madman on the loose, and Jonathan the only one looking for him!”
Grandpapa, in his nightcap, simply shook his head. “My dear, you dwell too much upon the incapability of our grandson. The Tilney girl has failed grievously, too, a subject I am certain you would not wish to neglect.”
A disinclination to hear any more of this, though indeed a strong sentiment, was not Jonathan’s primary reason for hurrying from the house.
He was much struck with remorse. Could I have but waited another day to ask Miss Tilney, he thought as he rode toward Netherfield Park, would we have detected any signs of danger?
Yet even that sharp regret was not so strong in his heart as fear—for whatever killer lurked within Netherfield had now proved a willingness to take life again. Were his uncle and aunt safe? Was Miss Tilney?
Jonathan had imagined it would be difficult, the next time he met with Miss Tilney, to conceal their joy from any others present. Instead, he was reunited with her as she stood next to the fallen body of a servant girl.
“Becky was only seventeen,” Miss Tilney murmured, gazing down at the terrible scene. “She worked as a parlormaid, but had ambitions of becoming a lady’s maid—Mrs. Bingley let her dress me, that she might have practice. That future and every other is stolen from her.”
“Did she not stand upon service at breakfast yesterday?”
“Yes. The Bingleys, it seems, allow their servants far more liberty than most. Sometimes this means that they trade duties with one another, should one wish for a different period of rest or any other reason. So long as no formal affair is at hand, one might find a valet polishing woodwork, a stableboy fetching coals, or even a parlormaid in the breakfast room.”
Jonathan remembered this from the past. “That was but an occasional practice, if I recollect rightly. We should find out if Becky was expected to serve in the breakfast room yesterday, regularly, or whether she asked to do so.”
Miss Tilney gathered his meaning almost immediately. “Of course. Did she change her day’s plan on either occasion? If so, did her action lead to this end, or was that no more than circumstance?”
It was then that Isaac Lucas arrived, clearly much astonished. “Another murder?” said he, as he came walking toward the servants’ stairs. “Are you quite certain?”
“Indeed, for a strip of cloth was affixed between the railings, so that someone would trip over it.” Miss Tilney pointed the way for Mr. Lucas to see the unlikely weapon for himself.
Though he paled as he edged around the dead girl, he resolutely went to see.
Young and new though he was, he seemed to have more interest in the proper role of a magistrate than most others Jonathan had met.
“Whoever planned this crime would likely have been familiar with the servants’ stairs,” Jonathan pointed out. Did that eliminate the Brookses?
“They further would have had to know that Becky would be coming down in the middle of the night, rather than any other servant,” Miss Tilney said. “Probably the killer is the person who suggested that she do so. But what could have persuaded her?”
The local constables, seldom called upon to do any duty, arrived rather awestruck to remove the poor girl’s body. As they rolled her over, Miss Tilney leaned down, then pointed at the floor. “Her candle—there.” It lay in a little sooty spatter of melted wax.
“What of it?” Perhaps Miss Tilney thought it odd that a servant would have wax instead of tallow. “My aunt and uncle give the servants any candles that have burned unevenly, and they are rather generous when determining what is to be considered uneven.”
“I mean, Mr. Darcy, that a servant probably learns the way up and down her stairway in the darkness.” Miss Tilney looked grim. “If she brought a candle, it may well signify that she intended to meet with someone—and, unfortunately, it seems that, in a sense, she did.”
Juliet took upon herself the sad task of examining Becky one last time, to ensure that no other signs of violence were upon her person.
Indeed there were not, and for this small mercy Juliet tried to be grateful; like as not Becky had known no more that a moment’s confusion, and none but the briefest pain.
Once Becky had been taken away, Juliet returned to Jonathan.
She did not dare think of what had passed between them the day before; neither the great felicity of a new engagement nor the delicate work of solving a murder allowed for many thoughts on other topics, and the investigation must take all priority.
Mrs. Bingley aided them in their first determinations by identifying the sash used to trip Becky upon the stairs as her own.
“I set it out as one of the garments to be dyed black for mourning,” she said.
“As such it would have been among the heaps of clothing set out yesterday for the laundry maids.” Juliet nodded, noting that those same maids would need to be spoken to, in order to see if they had observed anyone unusual poking around.
“I take it almost as a given,” Mr. Darcy said, “that you, too, feel certain that the murderer of Mr. Hurst is the guilty party in Becky’s death as well.”
With a nod, Juliet said, “It would be remarkable for two killers to be afoot within Netherfield at the same time. So we may eliminate the Allerdyces.” She was glad not to have to question Mrs. Allerdyce, as this would have required Juliet to spend more time in her company.
“Therefore we must speak with all our previous suspects.”
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